‘I’m so sorry, but we have to leave it there.’
‘Is it going to be on next week?’ Marcus asked, lolling to his feet and pulling the sleeves of his hoody low over his hands. ‘I’ll try not to cry next time.’
‘Oh, well, I…’ I stuttered. ‘It was actually just a one-off evening… I’m not a trained bereavement counsellor to start with and –’
‘Hear hear! I think it’s a wonderful idea to hold it again next week. Maybe you’d get more people turning up if it was a regular thing too?’ Ms Norris said, pulling on her thick coat. ‘You’ve gone to so much effort, lovey, it would be a shame to waste it.’
A forlorn balloon bobbed past, as if on cue.
‘Er.’ I bit my lip. I couldn’t suffer the embarrassment of sitting in an empty hall for half an hour again. I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time.
‘Well, see ya next week then,’ Marcus said, slipping a brownie into each of his low slung pockets and flashing a wave as he bobbed out of the room.
‘What a lovely young man.’ Ms Norris smiled after him. ‘So brave of him to come here and open up.’
The sound of impatient huffing from outside made me jump into action. I began swiping up everything into two large reusable shopping bags.
‘It looks like I’ll see you here next week then, dear!’ Ms Norris opened the door and let the moody-faced dancers file in. We’d run over by six minutes.
‘Yeah, I guess so…’ I trailed off, hurrying to get out before being dragged into a grapevine formation.
The thought of hosting an event again would have to wait. I had somewhere to be – somewhere I desperately did not want to go, and I was running late.
‘Grace!’ my mum shrieked. ‘Coo-eee! Gracie!’
Tina Salmon had always talked too loudly. She was one of those people who simply believed that the world desperately needed to hear what she had to say, whether the world liked it or not. Right then, her louder-than-average voice had to compete with the whiny strains of a saxophonist in the local band. An enthusiastic but tone-deaf singer was screeching into a microphone too close to his mouth. It was also about three hundred degrees. Bodies squeezed to get closer to the wrought- iron bar, desperate for the harassed members of staff to serve them.
Despite my protestations that I’d long given up celebrating and that my birthday had already come and gone, my mum had other ideas. It had been too long, she’d insisted, since we’d all got together, and this was the first evening all of us could make – hence my presence at a noisy bar in town. Still, I would really rather have been at home working on Mr Thomson’s service. Coming out on a Friday night wreaked havoc with my anxiety levels. Thankfully she had at least managed to get a table. She was perched on a high stool, with absolutely no lumbar support whatsoever, at a high table tucked into the corner.
I slowly headed over to her. I was still trying to put a positive spin on the Ask A Funeral Arranger event I’d rushed here from. But I just felt embarrassed. How could I have thought I could get the people of Ryebrook to come to a draughty church hall on a Friday night to hear me chattering on about funerals? The only thing to be taken from this evening was that I should trust my instincts. I’d stepped out of my comfort zone, left the safety of my flat, and put myself out there. I was annoyed at how much time I had wasted in preparing for the event, and in sitting alone in that musty hall before anyone arrived. Time I could have spent productively planning for the services I had coming up next week. I still hadn’t tracked down the perfect top hat to go as a coffin topper for Mr Deacon, a local milliner who’d recently passed away. I really wasn’t convinced that running the event again next week would have a more positive outcome, but I’d agreed to it, so it didn’t look like I had much choice.
‘Ooh! Grace! Over here!’ Mum was still waving a tanned arm in my direction, despite the fact I was heading her way. Rolls of mature skin were stuffed into the unforgiving, low-cut, shiny black vest top, and she jiggled as she beckoned me over. I sighed. Climbing into my bed seemed a long way off.
Next to her was my half-brother, Freddie, his face lit up by the blue hue of his phone screen, eyebrows knotted together, lost in some virtual world, ignoring Mum and the man on his right. That must be her new boyfriend. Tonight we were ‘being introduced’. Brian? Barry? Bobby?
‘Grace! Isn’t this brilliant!?’ Mum energetically jumped from her stool. Her cherry-red patent stilettos skidded slightly on the tiles as she pulled me into an over-the-top embrace. She smelt of cigarettes and red wine and a sickly floral perfume. She’d had her nose pierced since I saw her last.
‘Hi, Mum,’ I said, breathing through my mouth.
Freddie looked up, nodded in my direction, then went back to his phone.
‘Oh happy birthday, my darling girl!’ she shouted in my ear, pulling out an empty stool for me to sit on. The metal legs scraped in resistance. ‘Grace, this is Brendan.’
‘Alright!’ Brendan flashed a toothy, nicotine-stained grin and tilted his half-empty glass of lager in my direction. His round head nestled onto folds of stubbly flesh spilling from his tight, dark grey turtleneck. ‘So, the famous Amazing Grace. Lovely to finally meet you. Happy birthday and all that.’
‘Thanks, er, it was a couple of weeks ago but thanks.’
‘Freddie, make room for your sister!’
‘Half-sister,’ he muttered, moving over half an inch to let me get past.
‘Brendan got you a bottle of fizz to celebrate but you’ve taken so long to get here that we had to make a start,’ Mum admitted, without a hint of an apology, flicking her heavily mascaraed eyes to the upturned bottle of cava in a watery ice bucket.
She knew I didn’t drink. No matter how many times she’d tried to encourage me to lighten up and let my hair down, I had to continually repeat that I didn’t need alcohol to have a good time.
More for me then, was always her reply, after a quiet but audible, If I hadn’t given birth to you then I’d swear you’re not my daughter.
‘Ah, well, thanks. That’s very, er, thoughtful,’ I said politely to Brendan. He winked and made a clicking sound with his mouth, helping Mum get back up on her stool.
‘What took you so long, anyway?’ Mum rearranged herself with a wobble.
‘Work emergency,’ I lied. I couldn’t bear to go into the church hall disaster.
Freddie made a strange noise between his pursed lips, flecks of spittle jumping from his mouth onto the glossy tabletop. ‘What? Too many stiffs to deal with?’
Brendan smiled as if he understood the joke. Then realised he didn’t. ‘Stiffs?’
‘Yeah, did Mum not tell you?’ Freddie said.
I noticed Mum’s painted red lips tighten. She picked up a tired-looking cocktail list, zoning out from this conversation.
‘Our Grace here is the local Morticia Addams.’
Brendan looked at me and back to Freddie.
‘She’s a funeral director,’ Freddie explained.
‘Arranger. A funeral arranger,’ I corrected. Frank wouldn’t be happy with me stealing his job title. Not that detail mattered to someone like Freddie. He thought feminists were hairy, angry lesbians, and still called women ‘birds’. I’d once overheard him explain, in depth, that it was scientifically proven you couldn’t get wasted two nights in a row, something to do with the first night cancelling out the second.
‘Really?! You work with dead people!’ Brendan literally recoiled, a little precariously